Another one bites the dust.
Carmelo, one of the bad guys from the Hometown election more
than a decade ago, was convicted of taking bribes, but in his more recent gig in
the Brick City.
This makes one more from that old crew that has come to justice
– the New Jersey Housewife guy, Poopy the developer, Carmelo and, of course, the
U.S. Senator – all of whom had association with our poet friend back in the
day.
Oddly, little has fundamentally changed since she was on the
scene. The Virgin Mayor has been replaced by the Congressman she attempted to
bring down, with the Small Man still operating as chief henchman. The Neighboring
Mayor, a notorious womanizer, is attempting once again to take over the county,
using a former governor to run for mayor of the county seat. The old county
machine is still trying to stop him, including the current mayor of the county
seat, who is running for governor.
This mayor once was aligned with the neighboring mayor but they’ve
had a falling out, which means if the county seat mayor gets elected governor, state
aid to the neighboring mayor will dry up. So, there is deep hostility behind
the scenes and promises of vengeance.
The Neighboring Mayor’s statements at the indictment of the
U.S. Senator, made him a still powerful political enemy. The U.S. Senator has
promised to publish the pictures of all of the women the neighboring mayor has
slept with over the years.
Some of the people who fed our poet dirt during her time at
our office – including the private investigator who was once the neighboring
mayor’s best friend – are back on the scene, trying to undermine his attempt to
control the county.
The few indictments orchestrated by the Neighboring Mayor (with
the help of a somewhat corrupt state attorney general) to go after the county
seat mayor have failed. But blood letting has only started.
More people will go down before all this is over.
I saw the virgin mayor earlier this week when he was talking
to one of the patients at his pain clinic, a block away from my house. He had
plotted to run again, but was persuaded not to, which is just as well.
The world has moved on without him.
Joey D, who was the real brains behind the Virgin Mayor,
jumped ship back in 2014 when he became campaign manager for a mayoral
candidate in the town I cover, where he managed to bring in massive development
and changed the nature of the down before being forced out in a plot to unseat
the mayor he helped get elected in 2014.
Nothing changes. And I suppose our poet ,who moved on from
all of these when she moved out of the county back in 2016 or 2017, is far
better off where she is, since in this game, only the most vicious sharks thrive,
and only the most cunning survive, and since she was never as vicious as the
people who she associated with and never so cunning as those to whom she was
briefly attached, she would not have survived.
Carmelo’s doom is significant because of his ties to our
office a decade ago, and how much trouble I got into when I discovered that the
Hometown mayor had plotted against him, and the owners of our paper told me to
write the story. They panicked when the then-Hometown mayor and her cohorts threatened
to sue us.
I beg a favor from a powerful criminal lawyer, who offered
to defend us pro-bono.
But we were doing Carmelo’s dirty work, making me wonder if
Carmelo had done more for our male owner than just give us political ads.
Poopy was the other problem. I knew he was up to no good,
but his close association with our male owner, attempted to shut me down.
Later, after his conviction for voter fraud, the Small Man informed me that I
was the only person who had it right as far as Poopy.
Where RR is all these years later, I only learned recently.
Apparently, he brokered his experience into becoming a public safety director
in some south Jersey town, a risky proposition since he is notoriously untrustworthy,
but no longer a problem in my neck of the woods.
We’re still in the middle of this moveable political feast,
although I play far less a role in any of it now that I have given up my column.
I’m still working, but trying to keep under cover – as usual.
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